The Utes are halfway through fall practices, and some of the question marks from the beginning of camp are starting to get answered.

Cam Rising's health and progress for being available to play in week one remains the same, which is a good thing, because up to this point no setbacks have been reported.

A depth chart is also starting to take form at the quarterback position, with Rising at the top, followed by Bryson Barnes and then Nate Johnson. Knowing Rising’s current status, if the season were to start today, Kyle Whittingham is confident in who he would send out to lead the offense.

"Bryson Barnes," he said. "Right now, if we had to play today, it would be Bryson Barnes."

That's not to say that Rising is out of the picture, or even Johnson for that matter, as Whittingham said that "Nate will always have packages that accentuate what his skill set is", but that Barnes is taking the bulk of the reps with the starters, and they are preparing him to play if Rising can't go on August 31st.

"Bryson Barnes has taken the majority of the reps with the ones, and Nate Johnson has taken the majority of the reps with the twos," Whittingham said. "When Cam is at practice, which is not every day but most every day, then he gets a fair share of the ones in certain drills as well."

As it usually goes in fall camp, especially when the starting quarterback is still working his way back from injury, the offense still needs to make some progress as they near the season opener against Florida.

"We're not where we need to be offensively, the execution wasn't as good as it needed to be," Whittingham said. "(Last Thursday's scrimmage) was the first extensive live work so there's no panic mode yet, but we've got to see improvement two days from now when we have our second scrimmage on Thursday."

However, it continues to sound like things are going well on the other side of the ball. Whittingham was quick to expound on how well the defense continues to play.

"They swarm to the ball, very stout up front," he said. "We've got some very good guys up front that can control the line of scrimmage. Backers are doing a great job with their run fits, with their pass drops, and the secondary is really coming along. We've got a lot of good things going for us on defense right now."

A big part of that is the example being shown by linebacker Levani Damuni, who is fitting in nicely since transferring over from Stanford.

"He's tough. For one thing he's there every single day," Whittingham said. "He comes to work every day. He hasn't missed a rep, hasn't missed a period of practice. He's smart. Picked up the defense very quickly. He's an excellent leader, I believe he was a captain at Stanford so he's got very good leadership skills."

The Utes have already started preparing for the Gators, and have 16 days until kickoff.